As modern day electronics develop, electronic devices become smaller, more powerful, and are expected to operate in more diverse configurations. However, the thermal control systems that help these devices maintain stable operation must advance as well to meet the demands. One such demand is the advent of flexible electronics for wearable technology, medical applications, and biology-inspired mechanisms. This paper presents the design and performance characteristics of a proof of concept for a flexible Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) pump, based on EHD conduction pumping technology in macro- and meso-scales. Unlike mechanical pumps, EHD conduction pumps have no moving parts, can be easily adjusted to the micro-scale, and have been shown to generate and control the flow of refrigerants for electronics cooling applications. However, these pumping devices have only been previously tested in rigid configurations unsuitable for use with flexible electronics. In this work, for the first time, the net flow generated by flexible EHD conduction pumps is measured on a flat-plane and in various bending configurations. In this behavioral characteristics study, the results show that the flexible EHD conduction pumps are capable of generating significant flow velocities in all size scales considered in this study, with and without bending. This study also proves the viability of screen printing as a manufacturing method for these pumps. EHD conduction pumping technology shows potential for use in a wide range of terrestrial and space applications, including thermal control of rigid as well as flexible electronics, flow generation and control in micro-scale heat exchangers and other thermal devices, as well as cooling of high power electrical systems, soft robotic actuators, and medical devices.

A series of experiments was conducted to investigate the performance characteristics of a heat pipe with a hybrid wick that combined grooves and a wire screen. The heat pipe in this study was designed primarily for the cooling of high-density power electronic elements such as IGBTs, and it had tiny triangular grooves along its entire length. The container was a copper tube which had an outer diameter of 19 mm and length of 0.8 m, and the working fluid was water. To lower the thermal resistance against increased thermal loads, a higher performance was desired for the heat pipe, without changing the external dimensions. A fine mesh wire screen was partially applied to the evaporator to enhance the heat transfer performance. The hybrid wick heat pipe was tested and analyzed from the viewpoints of thermal resistance, effective thermal conductance, and operating temperature. For a 1.6 kW effective thermal load, as a typical result, the heat pipe with the hybrid wick exhibited a 70 % decrease in thermal resistance compared to that with a groove wick only. The paper includes results for various thermal loads and fluid charges. The results herein can be utilized in applications that require an intensive enhancement in heat pipe performance.

As technological advances lead to miniaturization of high power electronics, the concentration of heat generating components per area increases to the point of requiring innovative, integrated cooling solutions to maintain operational temperatures. Traditional coolant pumps have many moving parts, making them susceptible to mechanical failure and requiring periodic maintenance. Such devices are too complex to be miniaturized and embedded in small scale systems. Electrohydrodynamic (EHD) conduction pumps offer an alternative way of generating fluid flow in small scales for use in modern thermal control systems for high power electronics, both for terrestrial and aerospace applications. In EHD conduction, the interaction between an applied electrical field and the dissociation of electrolyte species in a dielectric fluid generates an accumulation of space charge near the electrodes, known as heterocharge layers. These layers apply electric body forces in the fluid, resulting in a flow in the desired direction based on the pump characteristics. EHD conduction pumps work with dielectric fluids and have simple, flexible designs with no moving parts. These pumps have very low power consumption, operate reliably for longer periods than mechanical pumps, and have the ability to operate in microgravity. EHD conduction pumps have been previously proven effective for heat transfer enhancement in multiple size scales, but were only studied in a flush ring or flush flat electrode configurations at the micro-scale. This study provides the pressure and flow rate generation performance characterization for a micro-scale pump with perforated electrodes, designed to be manufactured and assembled using innovative techniques, and incorporated into an evaporator embedded in an electronic cooling system. The performance of the pump is numerically simulated based on the fully coupled equations of the EHD conduction model, showcasing the distinctive heterocharge layer structure and subsequent force generation unique to this innovative design.

This work presents the design and characterization of a two-phase, embedded manifold-microchannel (MMC) system for cooling of high heat flux electronics. The study uses a thin-Film Evaporation and Enhanced fluid Delivery System (FEEDS) MMC cooler for high heat flux cooling of electronics. The work builds upon our group’s earlier work in this area with a particular focus on the use of an improved bonding structure and implementation of uniform heat flux heaters that collectively contribute to enhanced performance of the system. In many MMC systems targeted for high heat flux applications microchannels and manifolds are fabricated separately due to different dimensions and tolerances required for each. However, assembly of the system often leaves a gap between the channels and the manifold, thus causing the working fluid to leak through the top of the microfins leading to decreased cooler performance. The effect of this gap is parametrized and analyzed with ANSYS Fluent CFD simulations and discussed in this paper. The findings show that even a few microns wide gap can cause a noticeable degradation of the MMC system performance. Imperfect assembly and the deformation of a microchannel chip due to working fluid pressure can cause gaps, indicating the necessity of uniform and hermetic bonding between the manifold and the tips of the microfins. Furthermore, this work presents the need for better heater designs to enable uniform and high heat flux to the heat transfer surface. Serpentine heaters are often used to mimic electronics in a laboratory environment, but there is a lack of study on the performance characterization of the heaters themselves. In the current work, the performance of a conventional serpentine heater is characterized using ANSYS thermo-electric modeling software. The results show that conventional serpentine heaters are insufficient at providing uniform heat flux in applications where there is a lack of heat spreading-such as in the current embedded cooler — showing deviations ranging over 200 % of the nominal value. The deviations are caused by the many bends present in a serpentine pattern where current density concentrations vary significantly. Two alternate designs are proposed, and numerical simulations show that these new heater designs are capable of providing uniform heat flux, not deviating more than 20% from the nominal heat flux value. The conventional and newly proposed heaters are fabricated, tested, and analyzed with a working FEEDS system.

Rotating fans are widely utilized in thermal management applications and their accurate characterization has recently become even a more critical issue for thermofluids engineers. The present study investigates the characterization of an axial fan computationally and experimentally. Using the three-dimensional CAD models of the fan, a series of computational fluid dynamics (CFD) simulations were performed to determine the flow and pressure fields produced by the axial mover over a range of flow rates. In order to validate the computational model findings, experiments were conducted to obtain the pressure drop values at different flow rates in an AMCA (Air Movement and Control Association) standard 210-99, 1999 wind tunnel. These data sets were also compared with the fan vendor’s published testing data. A reasonably good agreement was obtained among the data from these three separate sources. Furthermore, an attempt was made to understand the overall fan efficiency as a function of the volumetric flow rate. It was determined that the maximum overall fan efficiency was less than 27% correlating well with the computational results.

Vapor chamber technologies offer an attractive approach for passive cooling in portable electronic devices. Due to the market trends in device power consumption and thickness, vapor chamber effectiveness must be compared with alternative heat spreading materials at ultra-thin form factors and low heat dissipation rates. A test facility is developed to experimentally characterize performance and analyze the behavior of ultra-thin vapor chambers that must reject heat to the ambient via natural convection. The evaporator-side and ambient temperatures are measured directly; the condenser-side surface temperature distribution, which has critical ergonomics implications, is measured using an infrared camera calibrated pixel-by-pixel over the field of view and operating temperature range. The high thermal resistance imposed by natural convection in the vapor chamber heat dissipation pathway requires accurate prediction of the parasitic heat losses from the test facility using a combined experimental and numerical calibration procedure. Solid Metal heat spreaders of known thermal conductivity are first tested, and the temperature distribution is reproduced using a numerical model for conduction in the heat spreader and thermal insulation by iteratively adjusting the external boundary conditions. A regression expression for the heat loss is developed as a function of measured operating conditions using the numerical model. A sample vapor chamber is tested for heat inputs below 2.5 W. Performance metrics are developed to characterize heat spreader performance in terms of the effective thermal resistance and the condenser-side temperature uniformity. The study offers a rigorous approach for testing and analysis of new vapor chamber designs, with accurate characterization of their performance relative to other heat spreaders.

MEMS accelerometers have found applications in harsh environments with pressure, temperatures above ambient conditions, high g shock and vibrations. The complex structure of these MEMS devices has made it difficult to understand the failure modes and failure mechanisms of present day MEMS accelerometers. Little work has been done by the researchers in investigating the high g reliability of the MEMS accelerometers by continuous high g drops and quantifying the failure modes. There is little literature addressing the multiphysics finite element modelling of MEMS accelerometers subjected to high g shocks. In defense applications, where these devices are integrated with several other compactly assembled subsystems, lack of knowledge on the physics of failure for the MEMS sensor in harsh environment operation, can be detrimental to the success of the system on the whole. Being able to successfully model inside of an accelerometer, enables the user to better understand the change in parameters like time delay induced in response of successive drops, change in pulse width that indicate failure, reduction in sensed g levels. Some researchers have subjected various accelerometers to repeated drops at their maximum sensing g(not high g) level, and used optical microscopy to detect damaged sensing elements [Beliveau, 1999]. Few researchers have modeled the internal structure of the MEMS device, along with the device packaging under the stresses of operation [Fang 2004, Ghisi 2008, Xiong 2008]. In this paper, a multiphysics model of capacitive and the moving elements of the accelerometer has been developed to model the change in capacitance with respect to stroke and understand the correlation with g-levels, in addition to the transient dynamic response of the accelerometer under high-g shock. This has not been much explored in the past. The accelerometer studied in the paper is the ADXL193, and subjected to repeated drops of 3000g in each 3 axes as per 2002.4 of MIL-STD-883 without preconditioning. A characteristic graph of capacitance vs accelerometer stroke has been obtained from a series of electrostatic simulations and is then used to relate g levels, capacitance, stroke deflection and voltage change using electromechanical transducer elements. The drift in the performance characteristics of the accelerometer have been measured versus the number of shock events. In addition, an attempt has been made to investigate the failure mode in the accelerometer.

The continued demand for high performance electronic products and the simultaneous trend of miniaturization has raised the dissipated power and power densities to new unprecedented levels in electronic systems. Thermal management is becoming increasingly critical to the electronics industry to satisfy the increasing market demand for faster, smaller, lighter and more cost effective products. Utilization of waste heat for the purpose of cooling chip is a promising area for enhancing the thermal management and net energy efficiency of the system. This paper focuses on the development of a tubular microgrooved evaporator and its performance characterization based on heat transfer coefficients and pressure drop measurements. Channel with aspect ratio of 3:1 (channel width – 100 μm, channel height – 300 μm) microgrooved structure was used in the evaporator. The system has been tested with R134a as refrigerant for refrigerant flow rate range of 0.005–0.02 kg/s and water flow rate range of 0.25–0.65 kg/s. Very promising results has been obtained in preliminary investigation. Heat transfer coefficient as high as 13,500 W/m2k has been obtained which is almost five times higher than comparative state of art technologies. The associated pressure drop is quite modest and much less than state of the art conventional evaporators.

3D or stacked-die packages are becoming increasingly popular in the electronic packaging industry because of the current market demand for cheaper and smaller products with high performance characteristics. As a result, the IC silicon wafers have to be grinded through wafer-thinning processes to achieve greater packaging density. However, it is possible to induce crack of the chips during stacking process or in the use of the device. Therefore, this study aims to determine the die strength of (1 0 0) silicon which can provide to designers for reliability of the die. Several methods have already been adopted to determine the strength of silicon die. These methods include three-point bending test (3PB), four-point bending test (4PB) and ball-breaker test. However, 3PB and 4PB have difficulty for application not only in experiment set ups and silicon die sample preparation aspects but also in actual use because of their sensitivity to both edge and surface defects. Therefore, the ball-breaker test is then proposed in this study to measure the maximum allowable force of silicon die. Meanwhile, comparing with experiment data, the finite element method (FEM) analysis using commercial software ANSYS/LSDYNA3D® are introduced to determine the silicon die strength. Moreover, the 3D model of the ball-breaker test is verified through the Hertzian contact theory. The effect of the thickness on silicon die strength and the failure modes are also discussed in this study. As the applied force increases, the crack appears on the edge of the contact area on the top surface and flare out within the die. However, the radial crack occurs on the bottom surface while the bending effect on the bottom side of the test die has become significant as the die thickness decreases. The early failure may occur at the position and then crack through the top surface causing the die breakage. In other words, the determined strength in this experiment decreases as the thickness of test die becomes increasingly thin. Furthermore, the simulation results show that the allowable force of silicon dies increases as the softer foundation material is applied while the bending behavior is not significant. However, the breakage of the thinner test die placed on the softer material is much easier to happen because the tensile stress on the bottom surface resulting from the bending behavior increases rapidly and significantly influences the die breakage.

With processor power levels exceeding 200 Watts and nearly 25% of the overall processor junction-to-ambient thermal resistance budget consumed at the second-level thermal interface (TIM2), the use of an all-metal interfacial thermal path is highly desirable [1]. Phase Change Metallic Alloys (PCMAs) offer superior thermal performance due to their high thermal conductivities and low contact resistance resulting from their excellent surface wetting. Also, reworkability and ease of handling make PCMAs attractive in a high volume setting. The current work utilizes packaged Thermal Test Vehicles (TTVs) for thermal performance characterization and an In-situ Test Vehicle (ITV) platform for reliability testing. Comparative thermal performance between a PCMA and organic thermal interface products will be presented. Additionally, reliability data from PCMA samples subject to various environmental stress conditions will be discussed.

XCom Wireless is a small business specializing in RF MEMS-enabled tunable filters and phase shifters for next-generation communications systems. XCom has developed a high-yielding flip-chip assembly and packaging technique for implementing RF MEMS devices into fully-packaged chip-scale hybrid integrated circuitry for radio and microwave frequency applications through 25 GHz. This paper discusses the packaging approach employed, performance and reliability aspects, and lessons learned. The packaging is similar to a hybrid module approach, with discrete RF MEMS component dies flip-chipped into larger packages containing large-area integrated passives. The first level of interconnect is a pure gold flip chip for high yield strength and reliability with small dies. The use of first-level flip-chip and second-level BGAs allows the extremely large bandwidth MEMS devices to maintain high performance characteristics.

Parallel optical interconnects (POIs) offer capacity advantages for high-density telecomm requirements. Once an array of multi-channel, high-capacity POIs is placed on a board, shelf or telecom rack, it creates a challenging thermal management task. To develop a thermal management concept for high dissipating racks (over 10 kW), capable of keeping a maximum temperature of 80°C for optical components, with tight temperature uniformity requirements of ±1°C between a receiver (Rx) and transmitter (Tx), a fully functional two-shelf telecommunication rack has been built. A thermal management solution was proposed and was based on the implementation of heat pipes embedded into each board. The performance of embedded heat pipes is characterized for densely packaged, high-speed optics applications requiring temperature uniformity and stringent temperature limits. The proposed solution completely meets requirements of power-dense, high speed POIs at the board/shelf level for the typical telecommunication rack. Moreover, it evolves into an enabling strategy for the reliable control of power-dense, temperature-sensitive optical components.